Obama-ite Goes Off the Reservation

Well, this is shocking. One of their own has rejected the idea that the sequester caused the poor jobs numbers on Friday.

The Washington Examiner says:

Posted by Gateway Guest Blogger on Saturday, April 6, 2013, 5:08 PM

Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi — whom the Obama team has cited as an economic authority when he favored their policies — attributes the weak jobs report not to the sequester cuts, but to the fact that Obamacare deters hiring at companies that have between 50 and 499 employees.

“I think it’s way too premature for the sequester [to be] having an impact,” Zandi said on CNBC this morning, to the delight of Republicans. “The retail trade number would be consistent not only with the payroll tax but, again, I think the health care reform may be having an impact. Remember the ADP number that said [that] for those companies with employees [from] 50-499, that’s the group that would be affected by the health care reform — we’ve seen a rather sharp slowing in job creation: 43k in January, 20k in February, and minus-five [thousand] in March.”

Companies with more than 50 full-time employees must provide Obamacare-approved insurance to their workers.

“In the latest indication of how complicated putting the Affordable Care Act into action will be, the Department of Health and Human Services and Internal Revenue Service issued 18-pages of regulations just to describe what a “full-time employee” is,” Paul Bedard reported last year. “Of note, to the Feds a full-time employee works an average of just 30 hours a week, not the normally accepted 40 hours.”

Zandi’s work has been cited by the White House when it supported their agenda. For instance, when White House Press Secretary Jay Carney argued that the sequester would hurt the economy, he said, “don’t take my word for it. Macroeconomics Advisers, Moody’s, the CBO all estimate massive job loss if the sequester is allowed to take effect.”

Guess who won’t be going to the White House Christmas Party this year.